Tug-of-war over provincial devolution continues

Senate chairperson blames centre of encroaching upon provinces’ powers

ISLAMABAD: Uncertainty looms large over the education sector in the country ever-since the passage of the 18th Amendment some five years ago.

The federal government has been reluctant to fully transfer related powers to provinces. This was noted in a speech by Senate Chairperson Raza Rabbani in Karachi recently, where he blamed the Centre for encroaching upon provinces’ powers with regards to health and education sectors.

“Centre is trying to take back [complete] control of these two sectors,” he said.

The devolution of the HEC is trickier than it seems as the 18th Amendment does not clearly mentions sequencing to provinces and how such transition will take place.

Nevertheless, Sindh and Punjab have established provincial bodies.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has formed such a body but that looks at colleges and other areas not under the focus of the HEC.

Balochistan has yet to make a decision so as to form a higher education body.

A sub-committee of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and a Senate panel are looking into causes of delay.

During the last few years voices have been raised about alleged biases in appropriation of a disproportionate chunk of funding for federal universities at the expense of higher educational institutes in Balochistan and Sindh.

Similarly, the universities in the Punjab and Sindh are often seen disregarding HEC notifications, warnings and advisories.

The matter of HEC’s devolution was forwarded to the CCI by the Sindh government and the former formed a sub-committee in March 2015 headed by Minister for Planning and Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal and including Federal Education and Professional Training Minister of State Balighur Rehman along with provincial representatives.

First meeting of the body was held in May 2015 where representatives from Punjab and Sindh did not show up.

In the second meeting held in October 2015 where the latter expressed serious reservations about existence of the HEC and its “involvement” in provincial affairs after devolution.

HEC Chairperson Dr Mukhtar Ahmed recently told a senate body headed by Hasil Bizenjo that provincial HEC ordinances could not supersede HEC 2002 Ordinance.

Federal level

The government does seem adamant to keep the HEC intact as Ahsan Iqbal and Balighur Rehman have been seen on several occasions defending the role of the centre.

According to minutes of the second meeting of the CCI body, Iqbal said issues of standards and equivalence will emerge, if each federating unit has its own standards for higher education, medical and engineering councils.

Education minister in the same meeting added that the law ministry “is very clear over devolution of primary and secondary education but the problem will arise where the issues of standard and finances come.”

The HEC

The HEC also somewhat opposes full-fledged devolution as it terms college education the primary subject of focus for provinces.

Way forward

At the time when two committees are looking into the matter any hasty decision would damage the higher education sector.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2016.